Jigsaw puzzle by Nina Torr
Buy online
The Nocturnal Conversations of Neurons
i
Illustration by Igor Kubik
Science, Wellbeing

The Nocturnal Conversations of Neurons

How Humans Sleep
Łukasz Kaniewski
Reading
time 4 minutes
Łukasz Kaniewski:
He writes about space, which is where he lives. He has mess on his desk (and likes to rhyme all the time). He uses public transport.

Human sleep is made up of cycles, and the cycles of phases – deep and shallow in turn. Although the cycles are of similar length, each has a different structure. Welcome to the architecture of sleep.

Human sleep happens in cycles. These are more or less similar in length: around one and a half hours. There are normally five cycles, each of which is important. Each sleep cycle has several phases. While we are still awake, muscle tension remains high. The brain’s electrical activity is fast and low voltage; different signals coming from different parts of the brain, which gives the impression of chaos.

From being awake, we pass into the first stage of NREM (non-Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. This is a light

Information

You’ve reached your free article’s limit this month. You can get unlimited access to all our articles and audio content with our digital subscription. If you have an active subscription, please log in.

Subscribe
Łukasz Kaniewski:
He writes about space, which is where he lives. He has mess on his desk (and likes to rhyme all the time). He uses public transport.
Translation: Annie Jaroszewicz
Publish date: 18.09.2020

Also read:

New Bed, No Sleep?
Science, Wellbeing

New Bed, No Sleep?

First Night Blues
Jakub Bas
Jakub Bas:
An enthusiast of wandering along the winding paths of personal growth. Enjoys reading and writing.

Have you ever woken up in a new place and noted with disappointment that you are still tired? I am thinking, for example, of the first night in a hotel at the start of your holidays, a night staying with friends, or the first night of a business trip. We aren’t talking here about the first night with a new lover, because then there are other variables at play that might give false results in the study we want to conduct.

The phenomenon of FNE, or ‘first night effect’, has been known of for a long time. Thus far, scientists haven’t been able to come up with a reasonable explanation for it, which has kept sleep researcher Masako Tamaki awake at night. So, she brought together a team of experts in human brain processes and began to look for answers. After examining dozens of brains of people while they slept in a new place, it turned out that the activity of both hemispheres of the brain was significantly different from normal.

Continue reading